


Principle

by Khashana, read by Khashana (Khashana)



Series: Disrespect!verse [11]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe – College/University, Flashbacks, Flirting, Lovers To Enemies, M/M, Martial Arts, Offscreen Parent Death, PTSD, Redemption for Jet, Stalking, Zuko’s parkour, almost sexual content but they don’t get around to it, blink and you miss it internalized ableism, borderline coffee shop au, minor attempted murder, the jetko is pretty brief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:00:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27693800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khashana/pseuds/Khashana, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khashana/pseuds/read%20by%20Khashana
Summary: Jet’s hobbies include hating fascists, eating the rich, and flirting.Then he meets Zuko, and he might get to do all three.
Relationships: Jet/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Disrespect!verse [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1782586
Comments: 42
Kudos: 221





	Principle

**Author's Note:**

> I’m back on my bullshit, and my bullshit in this case is lovingly detailed descriptions of martial arts.  
> Tbh I'm kind of nervous about this one--I'm further out of my lane than usual.  
> I was trying to find an uncommon Chinese or Japanese last name, but it's surprisingly hard to look up LEAST popular surnames. A quick google only brought up an anime character for this one, so I hope it serves.

When Jet was a child, his father went to work in a warehouse for Azulon.com. The pay was bad, the benefits nonexistent, and the breaks unreasonably short, but it was rent money, and they were hiring.

Jet’s father often complained of how quickly management noticed if he made a mistake or paused to stretch.

Somehow, it was still twenty minutes from the time he collapsed to the ground with a heart attack to the time his body was found.

That same week, the Azulon CEO, Ozai Himura, officially became the richest man in the world.

Jet’s mother was never home after that, working shifts at the grocery store, McDonalds, just trying to scrape together enough to pay the rent and buy food for herself and two children. Jet dropped out of high school to pick up a job of his own at sixteen at a local bookstore, and ground his teeth every time someone said, “I could get this cheaper on Azulon.”

The bookstore went out of business a year later, just in time for Jet’s mother to be laid off at the grocery store, and they all went hungry and came within a hair’s breadth of getting kicked out of their tiny apartment until Jet was able to finagle a job at an office supply store.

Azulon was hiring. Azulon was always hiring. But Jet had _standards._ Not very high standards, but standards nonetheless.

Jet’s mother had headaches, debilitating ones, and her balance was starting to go. Jet begged her to see the doctor, pointing out that it might be serious, and she just said, “What does it matter if it is? We can’t afford the bill.”

She died in her sleep when Jet was eighteen.

  


Jet lives in a shitty little apartment with two roommates now and works full-time at a coffee shop, which means he has benefits for the first time in his life. He’s several hours into another long and boring shift when the door opens and someone decidedly not boring comes in.

He’s handsome as hell, dark hair falling in his face and cheekbones sharp enough to cut, and the scar on his face just adds to the broody mysterious emo look he seems to be going for, judging by his black jeans and matching band t-shirt. He’s talking to one of their regulars, a chatty girl Jet likes to flirt with. His girlfriend? Not likely, Jet decides. Body language is all wrong.

“Morning, Jet!” she says, and Jet realizes he’s been too busy staring at the guy to actually welcome them like he’s supposed to. “Caramel hot chocolate, please.”

“Morning, Katara. Wonderful to see your smiling face, as always.” She giggles as Jet starts making her usual.

“You know each other?” says the guy.

“Oh, Katara and I have had _many_ a delightful conversation,” Jet throws over his shoulder.

“About what?”

“We swap childhood stories, most of the time. Caramel hot chocolate makes me nostalgic,” she answers.

Jet gives her the hot chocolate and she pays for it.

“Hold it for me? I’m going to run to the restroom,” she says to the other boy, and vanishes.

“Can I get a regular black coffee?” says the guy.

“Really? One black coffee? Not going to break the stereotype at all, huh?”

“What?”

“C’mon, man, you got the clothes, you got the hair, and you like your coffee black, too? Let me guess, black as your soul.” He starts making the drink anyway.

“I don’t think souls have colors,” says the guy. “If they did, I don’t think mine would be black.”

“Mm? What color would it be?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re not giving me a whole lot to work with, here.” Jet finishes the drink and punches it into the cash register.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m flirting with you, dumbass. Four twenty-three.”

Startled golden eyes flick up to meet his. “…Oh.”

“Whatever, dude. You don’t have to be interested.”

The guy says nothing for a second, and then, “What time do you get off?”

“Not for another five hours,” complains Jet. “But I take lunch at eleven-thirty if you want a preview.” He winks, and the guy smirks at him, seemingly back on solid ground, and passes him a five-dollar bill.

“We’ll see.”

  


The guy comes back at eleven-thirty, sans Katara, and follows Jet out to the alleyway. Jet stuffs half a sandwich into his mouth in a few bites while he ditches his apron. Who the hell needs half an hour to eat? Not him. He relaxes against the alley wall and gives his flirtiest grin.

“What’s your name, handsome?”

“Zuko. What’s yours?” Zuko leans against the wall next to him.

“Jet. You a college student?”

“Yep.”

“Let me guess, English?”

“Polisci.”

“Close enough.”

“Not really.” Zuko’s smirking at him again, and Jet decides that’s enough small talk. He leans in, and Zuko meets him halfway, and _oh_ yeah, it has been _too_ long since Jet got laid. Zuko crowds him up against the wall, kissing him hard, and inserts a knee between his own. They grind together pleasantly for a little, and then Zuko pulls away to gasp, “Can I blow you?”

“Uh, has any dude in the history of the universe said _no_ to that question?”

“We’re using a condom, though. I don’t know where you’ve been.”

“Rude. Whatever.” Condom blowjob is still better than no blowjob. “Do you have one?”

“Yeah. Hold on.” Zuko picks up his backpack from where he’d dropped it on the ground and starts rifling through it.

“I can hold stuff,” he offers, and Zuko hands him a stack of papers—graded essays, by the look of it—and continues rooting around in the bottom of the bag.

“Hang on,” says Jet, reading the top paper upside down. “Zuko _Himura_? As in _Ozai Himura_?”

“Uh, yeah,” says Zuko, shuffling uncomfortably, and Jet is abruptly incandescent with rage. “The accent’s on the first syllable, though—”

“Your family ruined my _life_ ,” says Jet through gritted teeth, and drops the stack to swing a punch.

Zuko kicks his leg out from under him, and Jet narrowly avoids falling into a split. By the time he rights himself, Zuko is on his feet, and he evades the next punch, brushing up against Jet’s shoulder and arm, and next thing Jet knows, his fingers are pointing down toward the inside of his elbow and Zuko is holding him there with two thumbs against the back of his hand, and no matter which way Jet tries to move it hurts.

“Weird,” says Zuko, frowning down at him. He doesn’t even look like he’s exerting any effort, the bastard. Jet wants to rip him limb from limb.

“What?”

“That started out silat and ended up karate. Gooseneck isn’t the way this move is supposed to end.”

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about?”

“Dosser three, control. It’s supposed to end like _this._ ” He bends Jet’s arm further out so his fingers are almost pointing behind his own back, and _takes one hand off._ He doesn’t even need _both hands_ and Jet hates him _even more._ “But the muscle memory—”

“I don’t give a fuck!” roars Jet, and Zuko looks stung. Then his expression hardens into something cold and resigned.

“I had nothing to do with whatever my father did to you,” he growls, and picks up the stack of papers and stuffs them into the backpack without letting go of Jet. Then he untwists Jet’s arm, but before Jet can do anything with that, he rams his elbow into Jet’s bicep, and almost immediately drives a knee into a point on the side of his thigh, and _fucking OW._ Why does that hurt so much? It’s barely going to bruise, and _yet._

He’s gone by the time Jet gets his bearings.

  


Zuko’s good mood from the morning has evaporated, and he sends a text to his groupchat with Sokka and Suki.

_Anyone want to spar?_

_Yes!_ sends Suki back immediately. _Meet you on Merion Green?_

_Sure_

His clothes will do for this, so he doesn’t bother stopping by his dorm first, just kicks his shoes off and drops his backpack, emptying his pockets into it. No reason to stab himself with his own keys. Suki turns up a few minutes later in sweatpants and a t-shirt, her bi pride bandanna folded into a headband to keep her hair back. She ditches her shoes too and settles into a sparring stance.

“Rules?”

“No headshots, no groin shots, no joints, no throws,” says Zuko, and Suki nods.

“Go!”

Zuko aims a flying kick that he never intends to land, just to get within Suki’s space. He already knows that if he leads with a punch, she’ll use one of the dossers on him, and it’s not what he’s in the mood for. She blocks and moves, aiming an upset punch to land under his guard to his solar plexus. He retaliates with a strike to her outer bicep, and she steps and spins as fast as blinking to land a round kick to the same pressure point on the outside of the thigh that he’d used on Jet earlier. He aims one toward her stomach, and she jumps straight up in the air to avoid it, punching a side kick out that doesn’t quite hit. Unfortunately, she doesn’t clear, and their shins collide painfully.

They continue like this for perhaps five minutes, maybe longer, and they’re both sweaty and panting by the time Zuko calls for a time out. He’s tired, but the endorphin rush feels amazing. Suki grins at him, wild and fierce, and Sokka starts clapping from where he’s sitting next to Zuko’s backpack.

“How long have you been there?” Zuko asks.

“Minute or two. That was so incredibly sexy, you guys.”

Zuko feels himself blush. Suki laughs and pulls Sokka to his feet to kiss him.

“So what’s up, Zuko?” Suki asks, slipping her shoes back on and heading toward the dorm. Zuko picks up his backpack, puts his own shoes back on, and follows.

“Asshole picked a fight with me,” he mutters.

“So…instead of taking it out on him, you left him to it and picked a fight with us?” asks Sokka, tilting his head.

“Real fights are over in about five seconds,” Suki explains. “You don’t go dragging it out for fun. Sparring is a different thing altogether.”

“Basically,” Zuko confirms. “That’s why silat dossers are so short. You end the fight as quickly as you can and you don’t give your opponent any opportunity to get the jump on you.”

“So who picked a fight with you?”

Zuko sighs. “Barista at the coffee shop this morning.”

“What? Why?”

“Don’t want to talk about it.”

He doesn’t know why he’s always so surprised when they drop it.

  


“I still don’t understand why you’re going to the campus,” says Smellerbee.

“What’s not to understand? Zuko Himura is a polisci major there. Campus map says there’s a whole polisci building. I’m _bound_ to run into him if I stake it out long enough.”

“No, see, you lost me at the part where you’re actively looking for a guy you hate on principle.”

Jet doesn’t have the words to articulate it, so he ignores her.

  


Zuko has almost forgotten about Jet the barista by the next day, but he’s walking out of Dalton by Suki after his junior practicum and her Women in Politics class when he hears his name.

And, damn it all, there he is, lounging against a tree, smoking a cigarette.

“The fuck are you doing here?”

“Now that’s no way to talk to a guy you were about to get on your knees for,” drawls Jet. Suki, bless her, doesn’t even react to that.

“I _will_ beat you up again,” Zuko threatens.

“Wait, this is the guy who picked a fight with you yesterday?” She pulls her phone out. Zuko feels his buzz in his pocket, but ignores it.

“Who’s your capitalist bootlicker friend, Zuko? Or don’t you know who he is?” Zuko’s stomach grows cold. She doesn’t, actually. He hasn’t told any of them.

“I don’t know what you want, dude, but just walk away. All we want here is lunch.”

“Hey!” yells Sokka, who is striding over the grass from the dining hall, followed by pretty much everyone. “This guy bothering you?”

“More friends of yours?” Jet smirks at them.

“And who the hell are you supposed to be?”

“Me? I’m just a guy trying to make a living. Unlike some people here who never have to work in their lives because they could live off of daddy’s stocks for a hundred years easy.”

“The fuck are you talking about?”

“You’re First Nations, right?” says Jet, bypassing Sokka to lock eyes with Katara. “This guy is Ozai Himura’s _son._ ”

“Yeah, and?” Sokka looks unimpressed. Katara folds her arms. Toph makes a fist and smacks it into her opposite palm threateningly. Aang glares.

“What do you mean, _and_? Himura is the guy funding that massive oil pipeline through Native land!”

“Zuko’s got jack to do with that, though.” Sokka looks as though absolutely none of this is news to him. So do the others, when Zuko looks around, and he can’t process.

“Yeah, you’re talking out of your ass, buddy,” chimes in Toph. “Why don’t you skedaddle?”

“I feel like it’s polite to warn you that almost all of us are trained martial artists,” says Aang.

“And Zuko’s one of us,” adds Katara. “Regardless of who his dad is.”

“Fine,” spits Jet. “Whatever. Hope those boots taste good.” He turns on his heel and storms off.

“I’ll be finding a new coffee shop, believe me!” Katara yells after him.

“What do you mean, _most of us_?” Toph asks Aang. “ _All_ of us, thanks very much.”

“What just happened?” Zuko’s voice is small. They crowd around him. Aang squeezes his shoulder.

“You okay?”

“I think so,” he manages. “How long have you known?”

“Awhile?” Sokka thinks about it. “I don’t know. Did you seriously think we’d gone this long as friends without learning your last name?”

That makes Zuko feel dumb. “I don’t know. I guess I figured you hadn’t connected it.”

“Himura isn’t that common a name, you know. As far as I remember, I went ‘oh, no kidding his dad’s a dick, I am not at all surprised that loser would set a child on fire,’ and put it out of my mind.”

“Same,” says Katara.

“And you were never worried I was the same kind of asshole?”

“Zuko, you’re gay, autistic, depressed slash traumatized, and disabled,” says Sokka, ticking them off on his fingers. “And you told us within a month of meeting us that he set your face on fire because you _disagreed_ with him. How conservative did you _expect_ us to think you were?”

Zuko has never really felt like he deserves to call himself disabled, but he doesn’t argue the point.

“Well, _I_ didn’t know who you were, and I still don’t give a flying fuck,” puts in Toph, and Zuko laughs, finally relaxing.

  


Jet has to put a little more effort into his stalking in order to catch Zuko alone, especially since he only has so many daylight hours he isn’t working. So it’s a little less than a week later he manages to surprise Zuko again.

“Not surrounded by your so-called friends this time, huh?” he says, materializing out of the darkness ahead of him.

“ _You_ again,” says Zuko, stopping dead. “Why can’t you leave me alone? I have nothing to do with my father’s company.”

“Maybe so,” agrees Jet. “Not like you ever did anything to stop him, though, is it? What must it be like, to sit back and let daddy pay for anything your heart desires? No need to do well in school, even if you flunk out you can get a cushy high-paying job with the company, plus a little nest egg, a spare million, maybe? And all you have to do is not question the status quo. Fascist pricks.”

Zuko breaks into a run, directly toward him, and Jet’s already setting up to use his momentum against him and flip him over his shoulder, when Zuko breaks hard to the side—not the side with a nice wide lawn and plenty of room to try running away, but the side that’s a building.

Zuko runs _up the goddamned wall_ and it is _infuriating._

He drops down behind Jet, who whirls and snags a handful of hair. He makes to drive Zuko’s face into his knee, but Zuko blocks with both forearms, _does a round off,_ swings one leg clear up to face level, and clocks Jet in the head. It stuns him enough for Zuko to land a side kick directly into Jet’s ribs, dropping him to the dirt. Zuko’s on top of him immediately, one knee in Jet’s solar plexus, and the other leg straight and braced against the ground.

He can’t get enough air to speak, so he slaps the ground twice. He knows when he’s beaten. Zuko doesn’t let him up, but he rests his other knee on the ground, taking enough pressure off of Jet’s diaphragm for him to draw a full breath.

At which point he notices that Zuko is staring past his head, eyes wide, sickly pale and breath hitching slightly.

“Dude. What’s going on?”

“ _I’m having a goddamned fucking flashback, you motherfucking prick.”_

The tone is all wrong for the words, intense but _lost_ , and a cold chill runs down Jet’s spine.

“I’m sorry,” he manages. It’s painfully inadequate. “Do you know where you are?” Better. Zuko looks at him, weirdly distant, but there.

“Yeah. I can still see, it’s just…”

“Playing vividly in your head?”

“Yeah.”

“You can get off me. I swear I won’t try anything.” Zuko considers it for a few seconds, then shifts off him, pulling his phone out of his pocket. He unlocks it, and just stares at the screen, like he can’t remember what he was doing it for. “Is there anything I can do?”

Zuko gives him a bewildered look, which. Fair. Jet _had_ been trying to beat him up until sixty seconds ago. Look, Jet is an asshole, but he’s not _that_ much of an asshole.

“You can talk. If you want.”

Jet sits up, careful not to make any sudden moves, and gets comfortable. “Okay, so you won’t believe this customer I had last week. She’s like, I want a medium latte, hold the milk, and I’m like, did you want to replace the milk with something, and she doesn’t. So, an espresso, then? And she’s like, no, NOT an espresso, I said a LATTE without the MILK.”

Jet has lots of customer stories, and he runs through three or four of them before Zuko starts looking actually present again.

“I’ve had pretty much all of those customers, except the last one,” he says eventually. Jet startles.

“You work in customer service?”

“Yeah. Not exactly the trust fund baby you think I am.”

Jet…doesn’t know what to say to that. Zuko stands up and stretches each limb in turn. (Including a move where he hooks one hand around the inside of his foot and stretches it straight up in the air. Jet is _positive_ he’s showing off with that one.)

“Speaking of which,” says Zuko, not conversationally at all, “You don’t actually know anything about me. My father’s an evil bastard who doesn’t care a whole lot more about his kids than his workers. So it’d be cool if you stopped jumping me in the street.”

“Oh, but baby, you’re just so hot I can’t help myself,” says Jet automatically. Zuko blushes.

“ _Attacking_ me,” he corrects.

“So I can still jump you in other ways?”

Zuko stares at him.

“Habit, sorry.”

“…Do you just, like, have two modes? ‘Stalking capitalist bootlickers’ and ‘incorrigible flirt?’”

“Ooh, hit me with the big words, English Major.”

“ _Polisci.”_

They walk along the path in silence for a minute.

“So, feel free to tell me to fuck off, but what was that all about?”

“Fuck off,” says Zuko immediately, and Jet laughs.

“Okay, okay, I see how it is. Just gonna let me drown in curiosity.”

“You _said_ feel free to tell you to fuck off, implying that you _know_ it’s none of your business.”

Jet puts his hands up. Damn, why does this guy have to be hot and funny _and_ a mysterious brooding tortured soul _and_ able to kick Jet’s ass? It’s not fair. Especially not the _being Zuko Himura_ part.

  


“Well?” demands Smellerbee when he walks in. She and Longshot are both sitting with their arms folded like parents waiting for their kid to get home from a party when he’s supposed to be grounded.

“Well what?”

“Is Zuko Himura still alive?”

“Yeah,” sighs Jet. “We’re at…some kind of truce, I guess?”

Longshot’s eyebrows raise.

“Explain,” says Smellerbee. So Jet tells them. Even the part about the flashback, which makes his insides twinge with guilt—but Smellerbee and Longshot have been with him long enough to deserve the whole story, warts and all.

“See, this is what we were trying to tell you.” Smellerbee looks tired. “You don’t know this guy, you don’t know what his life has been like or what he has or hasn’t done, and yeah—no matter what you do to Zuko, you can’t come close to doing as much damage as his father has, but that doesn’t make it _right_ to try and hurt him.”

Jet knows she’s right, deep down. It’s the principle of the thing. Now that he knows Zuko’s (probably) a victim, he can’t keep up his vendetta. It goes against everything he stands for to pick on the little guy, and if Zuko’s really a minimum-wage worker with PTSD…

“I’m not going to be friends with him,” he tells Longshot and Smellerbee, “but I guess I can live and let live.”

She looks relieved. “That’s all we ask.”

**Author's Note:**

> [Jet's father is based on a real person](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/oct/17/amazon-warehouse-worker-deaths)  
> Redemption arcs for ATLA's victims of generational trauma 2k21; I got no clue how to help Hama but I can do this for Jet  
> Bonus points for you if you figured out why the flashback  
> [my tumblr](https://khashanakalashtar.tumblr.com/tagged/disrespect-verse)


End file.
